Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Do some gifted children hothouse themselves?

Do some gifted children effectively hothouse themselves?

It seems to me that gifted children are often passionate about learning, and often focus that passion on a single interest.

I'm left wondering if the difference between hothousing, and accommodating the interests of a gifted child is simply a question of motivation.

I had never heard the term before I joined this forum, and I'm curious to learn exactly what it's supposed to mean. Thanks in advance for your help.

I tend to look at hothousing as parents pushing learning that kids aren't ready for. On the other hand, I don't consider a child choosing to learn as much as he or she can about an area of interest to be hothousing. So, I agree that the main difference between hothousing and accomodating the interest of a child is motivation.

Also, this is off topic, but I found your edit reason to be rather ironic.

I posted at some point a suggested conjugation: "I support, you push, he/she/it hothouses". Tongue in cheek, of course, but I think this is the essence. Few parents literally provide material and no guidance at all to the child on what to do, at least not once the child reaches school age and e.g. homework kicks in. We call it e.g. "support to persevere with a task" when other people might call it "pressure to perform". The question is just, how much pressure is the right amount? It's "supporting" when the speaker thinks they have the pressure just right (or doesn't recognise what they do as pressure at all) "pushing" when the speaker thinks it's a bit too much, "hothousing" when the speaker thinks it's far too much. (This doesn't cover *all* usage of the terms, of course, e.g. we had a thread about hothousing executive function and I think we all understood.)

So IMO, by the commonest definition a child cannot hothouse him or herself, although by a secondary definition such as the one we used in that one thread, s/he can.

I was recently accused of hothousing DS7 in maths (same conversation I vented about the other day). He was away from home at the time, and I tidied his bookcases. When he got back, he was delighted that he could now easily find any book he wanted. The first four books he chose - and he read all four cover to cover in his first 36 hours home - were all maths books (three Murderous Maths books and The Number Devil). In the sense you mean, he certainly hothouses himself! But I think it would be rather confusing to promulgate that usage.

You hothouse plants to force them to grow and bloom before they are naturally ready. I don't think a child pursuing interests passionately would fit that definition. When a child is actively seeking out more about a topic, they are ready to learn about it and grow in understanding. Withholding access to the material at that point would be like putting them in cold storage - artificially retarding growth.

What about obsessively playing computer games to the detriment of actual intellectual/social development?

That's "passionate", but ultimately unhelpful.

I don't think one can hothouse oneself either. Maybe in the presence of extreme desire to please a parent? I don't know. My kids are not pleasers!

Hey, that's good, maybe we could get that term into the language? I envisage people going into school meetings all over the world and saying "I don't want my child coldstored". Or maybe "coldstoraged" would be a better verb - harder to confuse with "coleslaw" ;-)

I wonder if obsession can, as a general case, be called self-hothousing. I've certainly had times in my life when I pushed myself so hard I regretted it later.

One part of the seif pushing another part too hard???

It doesn't seem to be completely nonsensicle to me, and the more I think about it, the more I think "well, maybe it's not that RARE, either..." But it wasn't something I'd thought of in those terms before. Well, except I've had plenty of conversations with older gifties who babysit for me and stuff like that about pushing themselves too hard. Or expecting too much of a breakthrough too quickly & driving themselves nuts when it doesn't happen.

I think I'm on the "yeah, it happens" side.

Maybe "coleslaw" is the appropriate opposition. As in "I understand your concerns, I'm just worried my ____ is getting coleslawed by the situation. Maybe we could just try _____."

-Mich

I first heard the term hothousing in the discussions of what parents in NYC do to get their kids into G&T, Hunter or private school. A Manhattan parent who wants to optimize where "they" (and it's meant as a family term) go to school has their kid take the olsat for public GT, the modified SB5 for Hunter, and the ERB which is most of the WPPSI. This is all done in a 6 month period and includes "playdates" if you are going private. Some parents take their kids in cold to all these tests, some get them into "academic" preschools, and some prep with workbooks, sill others take practice tests with a hired teacher, some send their kids to prep centers, and some go so far as to buy the tests online. Hunter is actually thinking of designing their own test due to the cheating. So hothousing in this context is getting your kid to achieve the magic numbers on the test without regard for whether the child would then be able to function in the school. Plenty of parents do not see these school as having signficantly different approaches or pace but rather just better stuff, in terms of extras or the best teachers. Also many state that the tests don't test real capacity at 4 so parents perceive it as a test of school readiness which of course can be prepped for. These are usually the people who believe it all evens out at 3rd grade or that early reading doesn't signify anything. In this context, hothousing is all about the parents, just like tiger moms, that the parent has a driving need to have the kid in a certain school or being able to brag about little johnny knowing his letters first.

In my intial posts after joining the board, I mentioned how guilty I felt for not realizing his behavior and desperation for tv was all about a need for new inputs - I was literally starving him by not providing the information his exponential development needed in that moment - instead of a growth spurt he had a brain spurt but I had no idea. We started going to the library weekly bringing home 30 books or more, working very quickly from picture books to nonfiction to chapters. it calmed him, his behavior changed almost overnight and his development astonished us. I think you can make kids learn rote even when they are not ready and its not pleasant. i think you can make kids who are optimally gifted perform well on tests with workbooks and focus by kid and parent - and the kid likely enjoys it. Is this what I did or do - no way - I provide sustainance which allows him to grow and develop. In those other scenarios, if the parent stopped, what affect would it have on the dc, for the forced, probably relief, for the OG, probably mild disappointment - for my DS, if I stopped providing all this information . . . he would either withdraw into his own head or go out of control behaviorally. He cannot fulfill his need for information without our help - so we provide it.

I never get to say this IRL, guess it builds up
DeHe

I'm combining my reponse for this thread and the hothouse spin off thread here because I want to take this

I did this too. I'm still struggling with it. Here's the dilemma I have: If I provide information I think he's ready for, I'm directly teaching him. If I'm teaching him, he's not learning by himself. If he's not learning by himself, he mustn't be gifted (because really gifted children would learn it by themselves), if he's not gifted, I am hothousing him.

The other twisted spiral I have is that when he stops learning, he get restistant to effort. I have to push him again to get started. So the less I do, the less he wants to do. The less I do the more I feel like what I DO do is hothousing.

Add the gifted child/hothousing stereotype and I'm a mess!

DeHe and anyone else - how did you get out of it?